Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/84

46 me to be genuine charity. And I don't see how they could use it better. But X, Y, Z, are exactly in the same position as any ordinary purchasers of goods. To talk of 'charity' in connection with their share of the business, is sheer nonsense. Yet they are very likely to do so.

"Secondly, the case of 'fancy-prices.' Here I think the simplest plan is to divide the payment into two parts, the 'market-value' and the excess over that. The 'market-value' part is on the same footing as in the first case: the excess is all we have to consider. Well, A, B, C do not earn it; so we may put them out of the question: it is a gift, from X, Y, Z, to the Hospital. And my opinion is that it is not given in the best way: far better buy what they choose to buy, and give what they choose to give, as two separate transactions: then there is some chance that their motive in giving may be real charity, instead of a mixed motivehalf charity, half self-pleasing. 'The trail of the serpent is over it all.' And therefore it is that I hold all such spurious 'Charities' in utter abomination!" He ended